Family History Originating From the Pale of Settlement

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Frustrations in Genealogy (What’s New?)

This post is just to mention that I’m at a frustrating point. Now that we have the names of the Goodstein cousins of Celia, it should be easy to track the families down to the present.

Inna made headway finding the descendants of Rose and Isidore, but they have not responded to our attempts to contact them. Rose’s son Stanley is about 92, and he could possibly have information to share since he is the oldest family member that we know about.

It was also quite a bonus to find that Max traveled to the United States to meet his brother-in-law Max, but the other Max’s surname continues to elude us. Here is a cropped version–Max’s name is on the third actual dotted line. I want to know what the surname says AND what the street name and number are.

Here is the complete document that the cropped portion comes from.

Anna’s relatives in the United States (if that is what is meant by brother-in-law of Max) will continue to be a brick wall until these two words can be deciphered. Any ideas? The street is not Stone, after all.

Yet another frustration is that the DNA match attempts with Scheshkos from Vasilishki has been inconclusive. One of them was compared on Gedmatch, and there is a DNA match, but so small it could be “noise.” The other person has been “unavailable” since I asked for a Gedmatch comparison.

Further Tiraspol and Odessa records continue to elude Inna at this point.

But we know there was family alive in the sixties because Celia was writing to them. The only clue we have is this headstone for Khaim Gutstein, 1897 to 1974. It’s in Tiraspol.

Inna translated the inscription:

To dear father from grieving children, grandchildren, daughter-in-law, and nieces.

That would mean a large family alive in 1974, possibly in Tiraspol. Will we ever discover if there is a connection to Celia?

All that trouble Celia and her relatives took to write to each other, although the censors cut out huge portions of their letters. I like to think Celia would like it if we can find the descendants of her relatives.

Hi Luanne, I am knocking my head against a brick wall too on my own research. Feel your pain. It looks like Steiners/Stines but nothing close to that on the old street name indexes for Brooklyn. Stone is Mother Gaston now. I am wondering if that is actually a S starting the street name, or maybe even an S as in South then the name of the street. I have looked at this for you a few days back and am stumped too on the last name of Max. hmmmmmmmmm I’ll take a look again after work today 🙂

I feel for you. I think I’ve given you my best analysis (by email) of the name, and I just searched a list of Brooklyn Streets, and nothing came up that was even close. It looks like Steiner Avenue to me? But the S doesn’t really look like the other Ss on the page—maybe it’s a P? But the second letter certainly looks like a T, but PT makes no sense. Even if it’s an L, I couldn’t find anything close to Pleiner or Pleines street. Maybe Pine? Sorry. 😦

I did find one Smith in a sea of Jewish names, and he and his family were also listed as “Russ/Yiddish.” So who knows?! What is especially frustrating is that the problem in finding it could be in almost any direction, if you know what I mean. What is really strange, too, is that the family lore is that there was a member of the Goodstein family in the country since the Civil War, but I doubt he would have still been living in a tenement in Brooklyn if that were true. And BIL doesn’t indicate a Goodstein.

Those amazing family stories can lead you down some crazy rabbit holes. My Katz cousins insisted that there was a brother who went to New Orleans before the Civil War, but I never found said cousin after endless hours of searching.

I have a Jewish friend whose birth name was Smith, changed from Schnitt. And I know of another Jewish Smith as well. So it’s not all that unusual.

Oh! Interesting! Maybe the Civil War was sort of a metaphor for a family having been somewhere “a long time ago”? I’m sure you would have found the cousin if he had been there!
Interesting about the name Smith as well. I was mildly surprised that the streets were so completely segregated by ethnicity. I have wandered onto other Brooklyn streets, and I can see there are pockets of ethnicities, but didn’t see anybody who wasn’t part of the group in particular neighborhoods. As you know, my research up til now has been more “small town” research.

Welcome to my world. On one Philadelphia directory there were eleven men with the name Isaac Levy. I’ve no way to determine which one married my cousin. And I have the same problem with Harry Goldsmith. GRRRR.

I see how you can get that. Also, I heard something from Sharon that made me rethink the #. That could be a 1 after the 529, too, couldn’t it? So if we add your three it could be 52913 haha! None of this makes any sense at all!